Overcliff and Undercliff
Down through the woods to Hayburn Wyke – a favourite destination. The ferns in the wood surprisingly live and green for December – very different from the dead bracken of the moors. Stream had formed a pool on the beach below the small waterfall – would have been good for bathing in warmer conditions.
So, up to the cliff-top and a brisk walk to Ravenscar. Weather cold but no wind and visibility out to sea quite low. Dead calm. Along much of the way we looked down on the undercliff – a huge area of slumped cliff which has been colonised by woodland and scrub. It looked really inviting but revealed few access points from above. There was one possible path but it may well have been made by animals rather than humans. Sandwiches for lunch at the Raven Hall Hotel – beef and horseradish, and an acceptable pint of Theakston’s bitter. The chips were poor, though – oven chips I think. And so back along the old railway track, steadily downhill from the summit at Ravenscar, a tunnel now between overhanging trees which must have grown in the 40 or so years since the line was closed.